Twain - Autobiography of Mark Twain

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
MARK
TWAIN

VOLUME 1

HARRIET ELINOR SMITH, EDITOR

Associate Editors

Benjamin Griffin

Victor Fischer

Michael B. Frank

Sharon K. Goetz

Leslie Diane Myrick

A publication of the Mark Twain Project
of The Bancroft Library

Frontispiece: Photograph by Albert Bigelow Paine, 25 June 1906, Upton House, Dublin, New Hampshire

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Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 Copyright 2010, 2001 by the Mark Twain Foundation. All Rights Reserved. Transcription, reconstruction, and creation of the texts, introduction, notes, and appendixes Copyright 2010 by The Regents of the University of California. The Mark Twain Foundation expressly reserves to itself, its successors and assigns, all dramatization rights in every medium, including without limitation, stage, radio, television, motion picture, and public reading rights, in and to the Autobiography of Mark Twain and all other texts by Mark Twain in copyright to the Mark Twain Foundation.

All texts by Mark Twain in Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 have been published previously, by permission of the Mark Twain Foundation, in the Mark Twain Projects Microfilm Edition of Mark Twains Literary Manuscripts Available in the Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley (Berkeley: The Bancroft Library, 2001), and some texts have been published previously in one or more of the following: Albert Bigelow Paine, editor, Mark Twains Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1924); Bernard DeVoto, editor, Mark Twain in Eruption (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940); Charles Neider, editor, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Including Chapters Now Published for the First Time (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959). Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are reproduced from original documents in the Mark Twain Papers of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

MARK TWAIN PROJECT is a registered trademark of The Regents of the University of California in the United States and the European Community.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Twain, Mark, 18351910

[Autobiography]

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 / editor: Harriet Elinor Smith;
associate editors: Benjamin Griffin, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Diane Myrick

p. cm. (The Mark Twain Papers)

A publication of the Mark Twain Project of The Bancroft Library.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-520-26719-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Twain, Mark, 18351910. 2. Authors, American19th centuryBiography. I. Smith, Harriet Elinor. II. Griffin, Benjamin, 1968 III. Fischer, Victor, 1942 IV. Frank, Michael B. V. Goetz, Sharon K. VI. Myrick, Leslie Diane. VII. Bancroft Library. VIII. Title.

PS1331.A2 2010
818.40924dc22 2009047700

Manufactured in the United States of America

19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on Natures Book, which contains 50% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.481992 ( R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

Editorial work for this volume has been supported by a generous gift to the Mark Twain Project of The Bancroft Library from the

KORET FOUNDATION

and by matching and outright grants from the

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT
FOR THE HUMANITIES,
an independent federal agency.

Without that support, this volume could not
have been produced.

The Mark Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley, gratefully acknowledges generous support from the following, for editorial work on the Autobiography of Mark Twain and for the acquisition of important new documents:

The University of California, Berkeley, Class of 1958
Members of the Mark Twain Luncheon Club
The Barkley Fund
The Mark Twain Foundation

The Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving

Lawrence E. Brooks
Helen Kennedy Cahill
Kimo Campbell
Virginia Robinson Furth
The Herrick Fund
The Hofmann Foundation
The House of Bernstein, Inc.
Robert and Beverly Middlekauff
The Renee B. Fisher Foundation
The Benjamin and Susan Shapell Foundation
Jeanne and Leonard Ware
Patricia Wright, in memory of Timothy J. Fitzgerald

and

The thousands of individual donors over the past fifty years
who have helped sustain the ongoing work
of the Mark Twain Project.

The publication of this volume has been made possible by a gift to the University of California Press Foundation by WILSON GARDNER COMBS FRANK MARION GIFFORD COMBS in honor of WILSON GIFFORD COMBS BA 1935, MA 1950, University of California, Berkeley MARYANNA GARDNER COMBS MSW 1951, University of California, Berkeley

University of California Press gratefully acknowledges the support of

John G. Davies

and the Humanities Endowment Fund of the UC Press Foundation

CONTENTS LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS
AND DICTATIONS

Preliminary Manuscripts and Dictations, 18701905

Except for the subtitle Random Extracts from It (which Clemens himself enclosed in brackets), bracketed titles have been editorially supplied for works that Clemens left untitled.